The ultra-minimalist Paris home of late fashion designer Karl Lagerfeld heads to auction this month with a guide price of €$5.3m.

Located in the Left Bank neighbourhood of Saint Thomas d’Aquin, on the Seine-front Quai Voltaire, the third-floor apartment is the architectural embodiment of Lagerfeld’s radical sensibilities.

The maverick designer bought the 260 sqm pad in 2007 and spent 2.5 years remodelling it entirely as an ultra-futuristic contrast to its historic setting inside a building from 1694, describing the result as a ‘spaceship’. Lagerfeld installed towering glass bookshelves in the living room to house his huge collection of books—he was believed to have over 300,000 in his personal collection – while floor-to-ceiling windows offer sweeping views of the river.

Every area of the five-room bolthole has a utilitarian feel, riffing on the idea of the modernist ‘machine for living’. There are concrete and resin floors and stainless steel cabinetry in the kitchen and bathroom, with a large rectangular soaking tub that looks like a fridge laid on its side.

Lagerfeld told Architectural Digest France he wanted the apartment ‘lit to death, because I live in over-lit conditions’, and strip lighting heightens the otherworldly, sterile aesthetic. This was previously softened by the designer’s furniture, art and objects, which were sold at a series of Sotheby’s auctions in 2021 and 2022 following his death in 2019.

The Paris property will go under the hammer on 26 March at the Paris Chamber of Commerce and Industry.